


Between Sunset and Sunrise

by casual_distance



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AI Charlie Bradbury, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Background Charlie Bradbury, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Misunderstandings, Past Andrea Kormos/Benny Lafitte, Science Fiction, discussion of forced sterilization, fluff at the end, non-explicit discussion of biological experimentation, non-explicit discussion/mention of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casual_distance/pseuds/casual_distance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has been kidnapped, taken from a trading moon where he and Dean had gone their own ways for the day.  Dean’s tracking him down with help from Cas and Benny.  Between Cas’s former colleagues and contacts from Benny’s scavenger days, they know Sam is not on any of the inhabited planets, which leaves the uninhabited ones- of which there are hundreds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Sunset and Sunrise

Dean wonders, chin in hand, as he listens to Cas and Benny snark back and forth, if maybe he shouldn’t just blow them both out of the airlock. He understands that they are in tight quarters together. They’re on a _spaceship_ for fuck’s sake, and they live on top of each other, but Benny is usually even keeled and Cas is ridiculously stoic so it’s pretty obvious they just don’t like each other. 

Cas snaps something at Benny that Dean can’t make out over his own exhausted sigh and drops down into the seat next to Dean. He stabs at the control panel and pulls up their flight path while Benny stomps from the bridge. Dean turns to watch Cas, leaning back and letting his head rest against the chair.

“What was that about?” Dean asks when Cas pauses in his manipulation of the monitor.

Cas taps at a planet on the screen, squinting at the information brought up. 

“Nothing,” he answers, glancing at Dean. He taps the screen again and the image zooms back out to the map. “Are we stopping at Flatfalls?”

“Yeah. There’s a trader who orbits around one of the moons there. Figured we could stock up on supplies. See if we can’t bribe our way into more information.”

Cas nods. “I have a contact on the planet’s surface that might have some information for us.”

Dean frowns at Cas. “Who?”

Cas’s lips thin as his face goes expressionless. “A colleague.” 

Dean looks out the main window. If that’s all Cas will say it means it’s someone from before Dean met him, someone from when he was part of the Facility.

Dean sighs. “Look, Cas. I know you don’t like Benny, but-”

Cas spins his chair around and stands. 

“Dean,” he interrupts, voice hard. He looks at Dean for a long moment, then turns and leaves. Dean stares after Cas until he disappears from sight. He shakes his head and turns back to his own console where he’s been keeping track of the movement of other ships in the area.

Dean runs a hand through his hair. Sam is out there somewhere, kidnapped by one of their dad’s enemies, someone who was determined to take John Winchester’s sins out on his sons. Between Cas’s former colleagues and contacts from Benny’s scavenger days, they’d managed to rule out most of the inhabited planets. When Cas had finally suggested they widen their search to include uninhabited planets, the possibilities had opened up. It was at once hope-inducing and terrifying. 

Dean closes his eyes and tries not to think too much about what might be happening to Sam, where he might be, or the possibility that he might not even be alive.

Drawing a deep breath, Dean opens the newsreel, reading through bulletins for anything odd that might stand out. He loses track of time and startles when Benny shows up on the bridge a few hours later.

“How’s it goin’, brother?” he asks, leaning over to peer at Dean’s screen.

Dean shrugs and continues to scroll through the updates coming across the newsreel. “Slow.”

Benny hums thoughtfully and settles into a chair to lean back and watch the blackness beyond the main window.

“Is there any chance you could not fight with Cas?” Dean asks.

Benny looks over at him for a moment. “I still dunno why you insist on bringing him along.”

“Benny,” Dean groans.

“He abandoned you.” Benny frowns at him.

Dean sighs and rubs his hand through his hair. He couldn’t even defend Cas, because Cas _had_ abandoned him. He’d disappeared during a firefight on a military planet while they were being chased by military goons. Dean had barely gotten out alive; he’d only survived only due to a wildcard rescue pulled off by Sam. He hadn’t seen Cas for three years after that. Hadn’t seen or heard from him until Dean wandered upon his ship floating dead in space, both the engine and life support non-functional. Benny had advocated leaving him there just as he’d left Dean. Cas had looked away, face drawn, mouth pinched tight, and he’d not argued or pleaded. He’d just stood there, body held stiff in military posture, and waited for Dean to make a decision.

“We don’t know what happened,” Dean argues even though he knows it won’t do any good.

Benny snorts but lets it go. It’s an old conversation and he’s as tired of it as Dean is. They sit together in silence for a while until Benny starts to whistle. Dean listens, opening his mouth to ask what the song is before he recognizes it and shuts it again. Dean doesn’t know the name of the tune; he thinks of it, instead, as Benny and Andrea’s Ballad. Benny only whistles it when he’s thinking of his long dead wife.

A scuffling noise catches Dean’s attention. He looks over his shoulder to see Cas sit down at one of the back consoles, his back to Benny and Dean. Benny doesn’t look, but Dean knows he’s aware of Cas’s presence. He always is.

Benny’s whistling winds down, and then he says into the silence, “We were thinkin’ of havin’ kids.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks as he taps on a news piece to open the story and skim it. He closes it when he finds nothing useful.

“Yeah. You ever think about havin’ kids?” 

Dean raises his eyebrow as he looks up at Benny. He shrugs. “Not really. Like kids well enough, I guess. Just never found someone who made me want to have ‘em.”

Benny studies him for a moment and then twists his chair around. “What about you, Cas?”

Dean blinks in surprise. He hides his smile as he realizes it’s an effort on Benny’s part to include Cas. The smile fades though when Dean sees the way Cas’s shoulders stiffen. Cas flicks a finger at something on his screen and forces his shoulders to relax. 

“No,” he says, sullen.

“Not ever?” Benny asks, eyebrows going up.

Cas looks up from the console and stares at the wall in front of him. Dean can’t see his face and he doesn’t really know what expression Cas is wearing right now. Dean opens his mouth to redirect the subject when Cas speaks.

“I am not capable of fathering children. They took that ability away from us.” He tilts his head down again. Dean had known the Facility did horrible things to Cas, changed Cas in a fundamental way, enough that Cas believed he wasn’t human anymore, but this is the first he’s ever spoken directly about those changes. Dean looks over at Benny to gauge his reaction. Benny’s expression changes too fast for Dean to parse it before it settles on something neutral.

“You never thought about it?” Benny pushes.

Dean’s hackles go up, and he opens his mouth to tell Benny to drop it, but Cas speaks first.

“No. We were warriors, Benny. We did not have a family unit.” Cas’s visible hand clenches into a fist. “Family was a foreign concept to me until recently.”

Warmth floods Dean’s chest and he looks out the window to hide the smile that spreads across his face. Benny lets the conversation go, and Dean hears Cas leave shortly after. He and Benny sit in silence until Dean heads to bed, slapping Benny on the shoulder to say good night. 

 

* * *

 

Dean walks up to the shuttle prep room in time to hear Benny demand of Cas, voice low and angry, “You just gonna bail again? Leave Dean behind like you did before?”

“I am _not_ leaving Dean,” Cas snaps back. “You don’t know anything about the situation so perhaps you should just mind your own business.”

“I know all I need to know, _Castiel_. You left him alone in the middle of a fight. He barely got out.”

“He _only_ got out because I left,” Cas says, his voice emotionless but hard as steel. “There are worse things than the International Military, Benny, and I have most of them looking for me at any given point in time.”

“And you bring them down on Dean?”

Dean wants to laugh, because first Benny says he wants Cas to stay and now he wants him to go. Dean knows that, really, Benny’s just pushing at Cas.

“Dean knows who I am, Benny. He knows who is after me and what the risk is.” There’s a moment of weighted silence where Dean is sure Cas is going to say something else, but he doesn’t. Finally Benny sighs.

“Just don’t take off again.”

Cas doesn’t respond, not where Dean can hear, but Dean also turns around and leaves without waiting.

 

* * *

 

When Cas’s shuttle docks with the Impala after his visit to Flatfalls, Dean finds out that Cas has brought a guest with him. Just like Cas, her beauty is warmth made preternatural by hardness apparent in the lines of her face, in the wariness of her eyes, in the rigid posture of her shoulders even when at ease. Dean takes in her bright red hair and pale skin, lets his eyes drift over the curves of her body before he looks up to see Cas staring at him narrow-eyed. Dean returns his glare before he holds his hand out to the new arrival.

“Dean Winchester.”

She looks at it, then up at him. 

“Anna Milton,” she returns as she shakes his hand. “Castiel said you might be willing to take me to Hestoria in exchange for information.”

Dean looks over at Cas, who is still watching him. Dean shrugs. “Guess it depends on the info you have. Don’t want to waste all that fuel for somethin’ we already know.”

Anna narrows her eyes in the same way Cas does and then gives a short, sharp nod. “We can discuss it now if you would like.”

“Sure thing.” He tilts his head in the direction of the hallway. “The mess is that way. We’ll join you shortly.”

She nods and turns to leave, stopping briefly to share a look with Cas. After she’s gone, Dean turns to Cas, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Cas?”

Cas sighs and heads back into the shuttle to gather his supplies. “She refused to tell me anything. Her situation here had been compromised, and I was lucky to find her at all. It would not hurt to assist her in her move.”

“You could have warned me you were bringing her.” Dean’s not sure why he’s so irritated, but the longer Cas refuses to look at him, the worse it gets.

“As I said, her situation was compromised.”

“Is that your way of telling me we need to leave in a hurry?”

Cas finally looks at him, rolling his eyes. “No, Dean. It’s my way of saying I could not have left her behind.”

“Whatever,” Dean scoffs. “Let’s go see what she has to say.” 

He leaves Cas behind in the shuttle, feeling like they’ve had half a conversation. It niggles at him, but when Anna starts talking, Dean forgets to worry about it.

Anna knows where Sam is.

 

* * *

 

Anna doesn’t get off at Hestoria. She takes the room next to Cas, but Dean finds her with Cas every time Dean looks for him. 

He’ll knock on the door to Cas’s room and then push it open to find them standing in the center of his room, facing each other, arms crossed over their chests, bodies tense. Anna holds Cas’s gaze for a moment before leaving, and Cas side-steps Dean’s questions.

Dean enters the bridge for his shift to find Anna sitting in the chair next to Cas, her feet propped up on the control panel. Dean smacks at them, giving both her and Cas angry looks.

He points a finger at Anna. “Respect the ship.” He turns to Cas. “And you should know better.”

Anna and Cas share a look that has Dean curling his hands into fists. Cas sends him an apologetic grimace. 

“My apologies, Dean.”

“Whatever.” Dean pushes past them and drops into his seat, trying to ignore the way they don’t pick up the conversation he’d interrupted.

Dean spends more time with Benny, grumbling under his breath. Benny makes no comment but doesn’t stop Dean from complaining loudly when he goes to the canteen to eat lunch and finds Cas and Anna passing documents back and forth. They look up at Dean, and Anna slides the papers into a folder and tucks it under her arm. She picks up her plate and leaves.

Dean stares after her. He turns a confused frown on Cas, but Cas says nothing, only looks down at his food.

Dean finds Cas alone for the first time since Anna joined them when they are two weeks away from the planet where Sam is supposedly being held. Dean reviews news bulletins when he’s not researching the planet Anna had identified for them. Cas is reviewing flight logs and checking the status of the ship’s systems. 

The fifth time Dean glances over his shoulder at Cas, Cas asks, “What, Dean?”

“Huh? What?” Dean jerks his head back around and clears his throat. “Nothing.” 

He cringes when Cas sighs.

“I know you well enough to know you have something to say.”

Dean sits silently for a minute before spinning his chair around. “No, not really. I was just…” He struggles to gather his thoughts, to try to find a way to keep from sounding as jealous as he feels. “You’ve just been spending a lot of time with Anna is all.”

“Ah.” Cas flicks at something on his monitor and then looks up at Dean with a slight squint. “Anna has been trying to persuade me to help her.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Help her what?”

Cas sighs. He looks back down at his monitor. Flicks at it again. “She believes she’s found a way to take down the Facility.”

“Her and what army?” Dean asks before he can help it.

Cas looks up at him through his eyelashes and smirks. “I expressed the same concerns to her, though not with that exact sentiment.”

Dean snorts and returns Cas’s smirk.

“She believes sufficiently damaging information will be enough to bring them down.”

“And you don’t.”

Cas looks up at him fully then, his face resigned, mouth curved down in discontent. “I don’t, no. I believe she is underestimating the reach of the Facility and the support that it has.”

“What’s the damaging information that she has?” 

Irritation crosses Cas’s face. “She has only told me that it’s about the experiments they perform, but I suspect that she does not have as much evidence as she claims since she’s been asking me to leave with her to help her.”

“To...leave with her?” Dean asks. His chest tightens and it’s suddenly hard to breath. He spins his chair back around so he doesn’t have to look at Cas. So that Cas won’t see his panic.

“Yes. After we have rescued Sam, she wants to head to the original planets.”

“I see,” Dean says. He stabs at his monitor harder than he should causing rainbows to arc across the display. “Well, guess I’ll be seein’ you then.”

Cas is silent a moment, and then he says, “Dean,” in a low voice.

“No, I get it,” Dean interrupts and thinks, _Benny was right_. “Nothing keepin’ you here. Gotta go fight the good fight.”

There’s another silence, this one longer, followed by a shuffle of movement- Cas standing Dean supposes- and Cas says, in a cold voice Dean has not heard in years, “I suppose so.” Then he’s gone, and Dean presses his face against his console, ignoring the way the hard edge of the display digs into his forehead.

 

* * *

 

Dean doesn’t know how Benny finds out, but the uneasy truce that had existed between him and Cas is gone. Not that it matters, because Cas is suddenly 100% soldier again, hard and stiff and unyielding in everything. 

He doesn’t engage Benny in his attempts to start a fight. He simply stares Benny down, face cold and impassive, until one of them leaves the room.

He doesn’t engage Dean at all. He sits at his console and does his work, sends his reports to Dean and Benny on time and in detail. He takes his shifts in the canteen, on the bridge, in the engine room without comment.

He doesn’t even engage Anna, at least not that Dean can see. Then again, Dean had only ever seen them interact when he’d stumble upon them in their clandestine discussions.

The only thing that keeps Dean from feeling like they’ve already failed at the mission to rescue Sam is the knowledge that Cas is a good soldier. He has the ability to put aside his own emotions in order to function. Anna has no stake in Dean or his crew, aside from her desire for Cas to join her, so her ability to function is also uncompromised. Dean will do anything for Sam, even give up things he never thought he would have to. 

Dean keeps Sam’s face, and the knowledge of what is happening to him, in the forefront of his mind in an effort to keep the pervasive sense of loss at bay.

It works, for the most part. 

 

* * *

 

When they arrive, Dean calls them all onto the bridge. Anna steps to the front of the room and pulls up a hologram map of the planet.

“Officially, it’s an ice rock,” she explains. “It was mined back when settlements first started extending this far and then was abandoned once all usable materials were obtained. Unofficially, it was used as a military base by the government for years, but expansion past this point rendered the base redundant and it was closed down as a waste of funds. Hadilox bought the base from the government and opened a private lab.”

“Hadilox?” Benny asked.

“They’re a sister organization to the Facility, but their… expertise is, well-” Anna hesitates and looks to Cas where he stands at the back of the room. 

“They take the latest technological advancements and find ways to incorporate them into biological entities.”

Cold shock runs through Dean. “What does that mean?” he asks.

Cas looks at him, blue eyes distant. “They graft technology onto humans, animals, and plants.”

“What does that mean _for Sam_?” Dean clarifies.

Cas looks at him for a moment longer, then turns to Anna, who says, “We don’t know, Dean.”

“You don’t know?” he asks, standing up. “You’ve been on my ship for how long now and you didn’t think it was relevant to tell me that my brother might be being used as some kind of medical experiment?” He turns to Cas and jabs a finger at him. “And _you!_ How dare you call Sam family if you were hiding this from me!”

Cas’s mouth thins, but he remains stiff-shouldered, hands folded behind his back, eyes locked straight forward. He says nothing in his defense, and Dean wants to scream at him.

Behind him Anna huffs in irritation. “He didn’t know, Dean,” she says before Dean can lay into Cas. “I didn’t tell him, because I knew he would tell you. I’m not certain that Sam would even be used for such a purpose. They’re very particular about their experiments.”

Dean glares at Cas, waiting for some kind of confirmation, but he’s still as stone. Dean turns his glare on Anna. “How did he end up here? My dad was into some shit, but this is way beyond anything he would have gotten into.”

Anna hesitates. “I don’t know.”

Dean narrows his eyes at her. “Why do I have the feeling I’m being lied to?”

“Because you are,” Cas says from behind him. “Anna, you know as well as I do that if this mission is to succeed you need to offer full disclosure.”

Anna narrows her eyes at Cas and then sighs, expression relaxing. “Fine. I have not heard that Sam is being used for experimentation, but I have heard rumors- _only_ rumors- that they approached Gordon to purchase Sam after he had taken your brother. This would indicate they need him for a purpose.”

“Are you fucking _kidding me?_ This is the kind of shit I should have been told about from the get go!” Dean resists the urge to storm from the bridge and instead grips the main console. He forces himself to breathe until he can focus on getting Sam out of this miserable place. Beside him Benny is glaring, mouth twisted in an angry frown, and when Dean chances a look at Cas, he feels a vicious pleasure that Cas is staring at Anna with hard, angry eyes.

Anna lifts her chin against their scrutiny. “I did not tell you because you would rush in there and make a half-assed attempt at rescue. I’m well aware of your reputation, Dean Winchester.” She flicks her fingers at the display hovering beside her. The spinning globe freezes, zooms in, and a map appears in overlay. “This is the total sum of information we have about the planet, and this is old government information. This rescue is going to need to be done in two parts and needs to be done with _patience_.”

Dean narrows his eyes at her and then jerks his chin in acknowledgement.

“The base’s computers are on a completely different network system from, well, everything else. It’s isolated. The best network hackers could not get into it, because it’s a purely physical system. There are two small outposts-” Anna touches the globe to highlight two points on the map. “-that are connected externally. They disconnect externally and connect internally twice a day.

“Our best hope at rescuing Sam is to initiate a two-step rescue. The first step involves Castiel and myself going to the planet and sneaking into one of these outposts. When it connects to the internal system, we will download the necessary information to determine the base plans, find out where Sam is being held, staff schedules and duties, and anything else relevant to the rescue.

“When we return, we’ll analyze the information and come up with a solid rescue plan that plays into any weaknesses we find.”

“Why you and Castiel?” Benny asks. He stands, body tense, arms folded over his chest.

“We are professionally trained in stealth and system manipulation. In terms of difficulty, this doesn’t even rate.”

Dean stares at Anna for a moment before turning around to face Cas and raise an eyebrow. Cas nods once.

“Fine. When do you leave and when do you return?”

Anna touches the display and brings up a schedule. “The next off-system time is in four hours. If we leave within the next hour, Castiel and I should have enough time to scout out the situation. Depending on what we find, we will either be back in five hours, or in seventeen hours.”

“And at what time do we leave if you don’t come back?” Benny asks.

“24 hours,” Anna answers just as Dean says, “We don’t.”

Dean looks between Anna and Benny. He folds his arms over his chest and says, slowly, evenly, “Let me make this perfectly clear. We don’t leave here without Sam, and we don’t leave here without him.” Dean jerks his thumb in Cas’s direction. “So don’t fuck it up.” He turns and looks at Cas. “If you aren’t on your way back in seventeen hours, I’m coming for you.”

Cas meets his gaze, and for a long moment he just stares. Then he nods, once and deliberate. He looks at Anna and says, “We should get ready,” before turning and leaving.

Anna hesitates, looking at Dean like she wants to say something, but Dean just glares at her until she follows after Cas. Dean turns the same gaze on Benny in warning. Benny frowns at him, but says nothing. 

 

* * *

 

Dean refuses to sleep until they return. When Cas and Anna don’t show up after the four hour mark, Benny goes to his room to sleep. They’re still gone eight hours later when Benny returns and tries again to get Dean to rest. When the seventeenth hour passes without sign of them, Dean starts preparing to chase after them.

Cas and Anna return halfway through the eighteenth hour just before Dean takes the other shuttle out after them. Cas is limping, and Anna has blood streaked across her face from a gash in her forehead. Cas shakes off Dean’s help and goes to his room. Anna pushes a collection of discs into Dean’s hands and goes to hers.

Dean takes the discs to the bridge and starts feeding them into the computer. Charlie begins going through the data, separating out information based on its subject.

Dean insists on looking for information on Sam himself, ignoring Charlie’s irritated huff that she could do it better. Dean is slowly working through what inmate-related information he could find, his eyes burning with exhaustion, when Cas appears behind him, startling him. Cas has changed clothes and his hair is damp from a shower. He’s no longer limping. 

Cas sets a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and says softly but firmly, “Dean, you need to rest. If we are to find the best way to rescue Sam, we need, all of us, to have clear heads.”

“I don’t know what they are doing to him down there, Cas.”

Cas squeezes his shoulder. “Dean, the first thing I did was to check on Sam’s status. They have not done anything to him, and they are not planning anything that we could find.” Cas hesitates. “I care about Sam, and if I thought he were in danger, I would let you know.”

Dean drops his head into his hands and rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Yeah, Cas, I know.”

Cas waits until Dean makes to stand before he lets go of his shoulder, stepping back to allow him room. Dean stops in the doorway, runs a hand through his hair, and says over his shoulder, “Thanks, Cas.” 

He leaves before Cas can respond.

 

* * *

 

Dean wakes four hours later and heads straight to the bridge to find Cas, Benny, and Anna going over the data, pulling out relevant bits and throwing them up on the hologram display. Dean doesn’t bother greeting any of them, just heads for display and starts organizing information. 

He finds schematics for the base that are labeled. He comes across prisoner data and sorts through it until he finds Sam’s information. Even though he hadn’t thought Cas was lying, he is relieved to see that nothing has been done to Sam. He spares a glance at the information on the other prisoners, but doesn’t find anything worth his attention, not with Sam still down there. The information on staffing and security is scattered in official documentation, employee manuals and memorandums, and the sporadic communication between officers. Dean runs a hand through his hair and tries to separate it out, but Anna tells him to leave it.

“Castiel and I will be able to make sense of it easier than you will. Focus on concrete information.”

They spend more time than Dean would like sorting through everything, but finally they have a cohesive understanding of the base on the planet below them and the planning begins.

Anna and Cas take the lead, outlining what they had cobbled together of the base’s security and architecture. Sam’s floor is marked on the map. They don’t have an exact location, but Anna assures Dean that it’s enough to just know the general area. If they get in undetected, they’ll be able to spend more time in the computer system searching for his specific location.

“If I can get here-” Anna taps a spot on the map near the surface, causing it to glow yellow. “-I can tap into the computer system and get control of cameras, internal systems, and data stores. Aside from the prisoner floors, this is one of the most heavily guarded locations in the base.”

“It’d be best if we split up,” Cas says, coming forward to touch another spot on the map. “If we split here, Anna can go to the computer room and I can start heading toward Sam’s location. It’s far enough down that Anna will have time to disable cameras and find Sam’s cell before we get to that floor. If not, then I can look the old fashioned way.”

“So who’s going with who?” Benny asks.

“You’re going with Anna,” Dean answers. He squints at the map. “I’m going with Cas.”

“You sure that’s wise, brother?”

“I’m going after Sam.”

“And if he’s-”

“It won’t make a difference where I am if that’s the case,” Dean cuts Benny off. “I’m goin’ with Cas.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to leave the ship unmanned,” Anna objects.

“It’s either that or you go alone and Benny stays here,” Dean argues. Dean doesn’t say that he’s either coming back with Sam or not at all. Cas knows, though, and he rests a hand on Dean’s arm. 

“The ship will be fine. Charlie is one of the more advanced AIs available, Anna, and we shouldn’t be gone that long. The longer we stay gone, the more likely we are to be dead.” Cas drops his hand and steps back. 

Benny studies Dean, then nods. “Fine, brother. We’ll do it your way.”

Anna sends a wary look at Cas. “I suppose I don’t have a choice. Fine. As Castiel suggested, we’ll go in together and split here.” She touches the map and then traces a line down the corridor. “Benny and I will go to the computer room; Castiel and Dean will head down to Sam’s level.”

Dean nods once. He folds his arms across his chest and squeezes his hands into fists. He thinks, _Hold on, Sammy. We’re almost there._

They spend the next few hours planning details and creating contingency plans, then break off to their individual rooms to sleep for a few hours. Prep is quick and easy. Dean spends thirty minutes with Charlie, giving her directions on how to maintain the ship. She’ll keep the Impala hidden, power and life support on low, until the shuttle docks again, and then she’ll power up and, upon spoken command, start heading for the closest system.

The trip down to the planet is easy, quick. Anna and Cas lead Dean and Benny through the complex, dodging guards and cameras. On the third floor, they split, and Dean follows Cas through long hallways and down stairwells. When the lights go out, flicker, and then come back on, Cas shoots Dean a look over his shoulder. Anna has control of the system.

Dean doesn’t know the details of it, but Anna communicates through flickers of light that Cas can read as if they are signs hanging on the wall. Soon Dean finds himself staring at Sam through the glowing bars of his cell. The bars flicker once, twice, and then Sammy’s in his arms, hugging Dean as if they were kids again. Dean slaps him on the back, and Sam laughs.

“About goddamn time, Dean.” He grins at Dean and then spots Cas. “Cas, man, it’s good to see you, too.”

“Sam,” Cas greets, eyebrows shooting up in surprise when Sam hugs him.

“You’re supposed to hug back, Cas,” Sam laughs in his ear. 

Dean can’t help grinning stupidly at them both as Sam pulls away with a pat to Cas’s shoulder. 

“We should get going. The longer we spend here-” Cas is cut off by the sound of energy guns going off. The lights above their heads explode. Dean shoves a gun into Sam’s hand and pushes him ahead of him and Cas. Dean follows after, shouting directions, while Cas comes up behind him, returning fire at the guards.

They’re chased up the levels, gunfire following them the whole way. They reach the third level, the spot where they split from Benny and Anna and where they are supposed to meet them again. Cas slams into Dean, sending him sprawling against the wall. 

“Goddamn it, Cas,” Dean hisses, shoving at him.

“We can’t wait, Dean. Anna will know we’ve been spotted, and she and Benny’ll follow after us,” Cas pants. Dean nods in agreement and they take off to their agreed-upon exit. 

Benny and Anna do catch up, and together the five of them stumble into the shuttle. Dean throws himself into the pilot’s chair and takes off. Benny takes over the gunnery and soon they’re free of the planet’s atmosphere, headed toward the Impala.

After they dock, all of them make way to the bridge, Dean shouting at Charlie to get them gone. Dean’s halfway to the bridge when he realizes that Cas isn’t with them. He shoves at Sam and barks, “Make sure we get out of here,” before heading back to the shuttle.

“Cas, where the fuck are you?” Dean calls, ducking back into the shuttle’s cockpit. Cas doesn’t answer, and when Dean heads into the back, he finds Cas slumped over in his chair, blood pooling on the floor under him.

 

* * *

 

Cas’s back is flayed open from the gunfire. In the infirmary, Anna shoves Dean aside, snaps orders at him, and starts working on cleaning out the wounds. At her command, Dean sets up the med pump, dropping blood vials into it and running lines into Cas’s chest. Anna works steadily. The longer she works, the less frantic she is.

Finally she sighs and leans back. “Good thing these were energy guns.”

“Doesn’t look that good,” Dean snarls at her.

Anna scowls at him. “Dean, our bodies were built to handle damage of this nature. Projectile weapons are much more dangerous to us than energy weapons. If he’d been shot by that archaic thing you carry, he’d be dead by now.”

Dean scowls at her and storms from the room. He stops in the hallway, leaning back against the wall, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. He doesn’t know what would be more painful if Cas doesn’t make it, being there or not being there.

He doesn’t know how to choose, so he finally leaves to go look for Sam and finds him in his room, bandaging the few wounds that had been inflicted on him, hair still dripping from his shower.

“How ya doin’, Sammy?” Dean asks, dropping onto Sam’s bed.

“Good. Fine. How’s Cas?”

Dean shrugs. “Need help?”

“Nah, I got it. It’s nothing too bad. They’re old anyway- already mostly healed.” He pulls a new shirt on and settles into his desk chair across from Dean.

“Seriously, Dean, how’s Cas?”

Dean studies the floor just past his feet for a moment before sighing. “Anna says he’ll be fine.”

“But?”

“But his back was a mess. He got hit several times.” Dean scowls at the wall. “Stupid fucker didn’t say anything. Not one word.”

“Maybe he just didn’t get a chance to.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

Sam sighs, but lets it go. “Can I go see him?”

Dean stands. “Yeah. Anna was still working on him, but as long as we don’t get in her way, I expect it’ll be fine.”

Sam follows Dean to the infirmary, where they find that Anna has finished with Cas. She has traded out the empty blood vials for pain meds and is programming a schedule into the machine.

“Sam. How are you doing?” she asks, turning to face him. “Do you need me to look at any injuries?”

Sam shakes his head. “I’m good. Thanks, Anna. How’s Cas?”

“He’ll be fine. I’m already seeing signs of healing. It may take a week or so, but he’ll be up and about before you know it.”

Sam nods and runs a hand through his hair. “That’s good. Can I sit with him for a little bit?”

“Of course.” She turns to Dean. “Dean, I was actually hoping to speak to you.”

“Sure thing.” He nods his head toward the doorway and they head out into the hallway. 

“I was hoping you might drop me off at Heavensgate. We’ll be there in a few days.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean says with a frown, “but aren’t you gonna wait for Cas?”

She returns his frown. “No. Since Castiel has already started healing, he will be able to manage on his own.”

“He mentioned that you wanted him to join you.”

Anna huffs a small laugh. “I’ve been trying for years, and he’s never considered it.” She shakes her head. “It’s a shame, but I haven’t given up hope yet.”

“I don’t understand. He made it sound like he was going with you.”

Anna gives him a considering look. After a long moment, she says, “Castiel hasn’t told you much about the Facility, has he?”

“Some, but yeah, not much.”

Anna looks past him, eyes going unfocused. “We all had families once, you know. I was ‘recruited’ while I was in college. They took me when I was walking home with some friends. They killed the people I was with and left no evidence behind. My parents looked for me until they died. I was the kind of case some investigator looked at once every few years, at least until the concept of local police was destroyed.” She’s quiet for a moment. “See, the thing is, I don’t remember them; I don’t remember my friends or my parents. I don’t remember that life. I only know that much because I found my recruitment records. That’s the way it is for most of us. All of us, really. Except Castiel.”

Anna looks up at Dean. “He remembers his family from before. He had a wife, a daughter, a brother. I don’t think he remembers much, but enough that he misses the idea of family. The jobs they’d send him on- they’d trigger something in him, and Naomi- one of the doctors- she’d have to wipe him, clean him, to make him functional again.

“I want him to come with us because when he got out, he destroyed the recruitment facility. He wasn’t the first to get out, but he dismantled their recruitment program single-handedly. He destroyed all the data related to it. I’m talking back-ups of back-ups of back-ups worth of data, Dean. 

“He burned the recruitment facility to the ground. Killed everyone associated with the program. Rescued those who were being held in the building at the time. The higher ups in charge of the recruitment program had to decide if they wanted to start from scratch or give it up. They already had hundreds of thousands of recruits, so they chose to give it up and focus on the improvement of those still in the program.

“If he turned his attention to this, he could take out the Facility, Dean. But he doesn’t. He refuses to be a part of it because of you and Sam.” She shrugs. “I can’t change that.”

Dean stares at her. “He said he doesn’t believe the Facility can be taken down.”

Anna quirks an eyebrow at him. “You’ve seen him fight, Dean. If we had the proper information, there is no way Castiel wouldn’t be able to find a way to dismantle it.”

Dean looks away from her and stares down the hallway. She’s right; Cas is brutal efficiency, but what’s more, he’s _clever_. Dean has seen him take a situation and turn it on its head. He’s seen Cas find solutions that Dean or Sam would never have considered. Dean runs a hand through his hair.

“I’m gonna go sit with him,” he finally says.

“I think he’d appreciate that,” Anna responds. Dean can’t tell if she’s being genuine, but he supposes it doesn’t make it any less true. She hesitates and then turns around to head to her room, sensing his dismissal.

“Hey, Anna, get with Benny to schedule your drop-off,” he calls after her; it’s the best way he knows how to say thanks.

She glances over her shoulder at him and nods.

 

* * *

 

Sam takes over Cas’s duties while Cas is still in the infirmary. Dean splits his off-time between hanging out with Sam and sitting with Cas. Sam and Benny get along fine, to Dean’s relief, though he isn’t sure why he had expected otherwise. Sam will sit with him sometimes as he sits with Cas, and Benny shows up occasionally, usually just to check on Dean.

It takes them a day to get to Heavensgate and Anna leaves easily. She checks on Cas one last time and says he’s doing well. She hugs Dean on the way out to Sam’s raised eyebrow. Dean gets contact information from her; he knows Cas will want it.

It takes another two days for Cas to wake up. Dean’s sitting with him, chin resting on his arms, which are resting on Cas’s bed. He picks at Cas’s sheets, not really thinking of anything in particular, and startles when there’s a touch on his shoulder. Dean looks over to see Cas smiling at him, a little curl of his lips that’s warm and fond, eyes bleary with exhaustion and medication. Dean’s breath catches in his throat and he smiles back.

“You’re awake.”

Cas drops his hand to the bed, lets it rest near Dean’s arm, not quite touching. “Yes. How is Sam?”

Dean chuckles. “Sam’s good. He took over your duties while you were out and spends the rest of his time complaining about the state of his room. He keeps insisting I should have gone in there to dust while he was gone.” 

Cas’s smile widens. Dean stares at him, heart beating heavily in his chest. He swallows heavily and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Um...Anna’s gone.”

Cas looks away. “Ah.”

“We dropped her off at Heavensgate.”

Cas nods. “That makes sense. We have several contacts there, and she had mentioned speaking with Balthazar recently.”

Dean hesitates, but then forces out, “She told me about your family, Cas.”

Cas slides his hand away from Dean’s arm and curls his hands together in his lap. He says nothing, but he pinches his lips together tightly, eyebrows furrowing, gaze directed downward.

“Hey.” Dean touches Cas’s leg gently. “It’s okay, man. I just- I thought you were going with her.”

Cas shrugs, but doesn’t look at Dean. Dean sighs.

“Don’t be mad at her, Cas.”

“I’m not,” Cas says, but his voice is hard.

“You sound like you are.”

“She just- it wasn’t her place to tell you. I am sorry if she made you uncomfortable.”

“What?” Dean sits upright to look at Cas closely. “No. Why would I be uncomfortable?”

Cas sighs. He still doesn’t look at Dean. “I realized that I may have… misunderstood certain things. I know how important family is to you and I may have- may have-” Cas stops, his expression closing off. He shuts his eyes. Dean sighs. He reaches out and pulls Cas’s hand from his lap back onto the bed. He wraps his own hand around it, sliding his fingers in between Cas’s. Cas holds his hand back, squeezing almost too tightly. Fearfully.

Dean considers what he wants to say, how he can tell Cas that he is family, almost always has been. He thinks about the ways he has sacrificed for Cas, the ways Cas has sacrificed for him. He thinks about what Anna had said, about Cas having a family, having a brother like Dean, having a wife, having a child.

“I lied to Benny, you know,” Dean says after a long moment. He hadn’t meant to say it, but when Cas looks over at him, familiar confused frown curling his mouth downward, Dean’s glad he did.

“I don’t understand.”

Dean smiles and ducks his head down, staring at his and Cas’s hands for a moment before looking up at Cas through his eyelashes. “I’ve thought about kids.”

Cas squints at him. Dean knows the confusion is affected. Cas doesn’t forget anything, not unless he’s made to.

“I always imagined finding a planet, one of those ones on the edge of the ‘habited areas. Something warmer, a farm planet probably. I wouldn’t mind a large stretch of land, rows of grains or whatever bullshit veggie Sam wants to grow stretching out from our houses for miles and miles.”

“Our houses?” Cas asks.

Dean hums. He tightens his grip on Cas’s hand momentarily, looking down at it again, and then says, “Yeah. Sam’s house and yours ‘n’ mine. Sam would settle down with some pretty thing, of course, and pop out his own herd of kids, so he’d need his own place. But we’d share a backyard, so our kids and his could play together.”

Cas’s breath catches. There’s a moment of silence where Cas doesn’t breathe, and then he’s squeezing Dean’s hand hard enough that Dean winces. The pressure lets up immediately, and Cas breathes out a hysterical sounding laugh. Dean looks up at him to find Cas staring at him with wide eyes, his mouth dropped open. 

Dean grimaces and starts to pull his hand away from Cas’s, suddenly nervous. Cas frowns at him and tightens his grip, pulling on Dean’s hand until Dean catches the hint and lets Cas pull him up onto the side of the bed. Cas leans forward and wraps his arms around Dean’s shoulders. Dean presses his face into Cas’s neck and clings back. His heart beats painfully in his chest, but his nerves are gone, replaced with a wild kind of hope. He shifts closer to Cas and sighs in relief.

It isn’t long before Cas pulls away and scoots over, inviting Dean to settle into the bed next to him. Cas tucks himself into Dean’s side and quietly admits he’s thought about children with Dean, too.

“I don’t remember my family, not specifically,” he says, “but I remember what it felt like. I remember the warmth and the comfort. I remember what it was like to love and be loved.” Cas presses his face against Dean’s chest. “It was so long ago. I gave up hope of finding that again. But you and Sam...” Cas is quiet. He breathes against Dean, and Dean presses a kiss into his hair, waiting. Cas takes a deep breath. “You and Sam showed me I could have it again.”

“You do have it, Cas,” Dean says. He tightens his arms around Cas when Cas turns his face fully against Dean’s chest. Movement in the doorway catches Dean’s attention and he looks over to see Sam standing there smiling widely. Dean rolls his eyes and jerks his chin in dismissal. Sam’s grin turns into a knowing smirk, but he leaves without actually saying anything. Dean’s sure he’ll hear it later, but at least he doesn’t have to get out of bed to kick Sam’s ass.

After a moment, Dean says, “Look, Cas. You don’t have to pick between us and the Facility.”

Cas sits back, frowning up at Dean. Dean shifts uncomfortably, but pushes on.

“What I mean is, Sam and I can help you. Benny, too,” he adds just to see Cas’s face squish down into a disgusted squint. He snorts a laugh. “I really wish you two would get along.”

“He thinks I intend to leave you,” Cas mutters. He shoots an angry glare at the doorway as if Benny is going to be standing there to see it.

“You aren’t, are you?”

Cas turns the angry glare on Dean, and Dean raises a hand in surrender. Cas stares at him for a moment before relaxing against Dean again. He sighs. “There are more reasons than you and Sam for my choosing to not assist Anna.”

“Okay,” Dean acknowledges. “But if you change your mind…”

“I will let you know, Dean.” 

They sit in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, until Cas says, quietly, “I have always thought two would be a good number, a boy and a girl.”

Dean presses his face into Cas’s hair and laughs. He laughs and says, “Yeah, Cas, that sounds perfect.”

And it did.

**Author's Note:**

> This got out of hand. I got to 5k and realized I still had at least another 5k-10k to write when I had intended to write only 1-2k for these trope fics. I ended up dropping a huge amount of Sam-centric plot because it was the only thing I hadn’t written explicitly into the fic yet. :(


End file.
